Advice for new young runners

[campermom]

My 7 year old daughter wants to run with me. Soccer practice begins Friday and I was thinking about doing some short runs afterwards with her. I know the timing isn’t perfect since she might Be tired but this would be a chance for us to be alone and already out.

I’m also not training hard right now so that works out.

Girls on the Run doesn’t start until next school year but we talked about that.

She has been drawing pictures of me running lately and they are so cute, they say things like “I’m good!” And Moms Run!

I mentioned maybe she could run on a trail with me and she got really excited about that. I’m really excited about this! She did say she wants to do a 50k but maybe not till 3rd grade

So how do I start her out...timed walk/runs like in C25k?
She just got a new pair of tennis shoes actually so maybe we can designate those as running shoes not for playing.


ETA: 5k is a great goal here

[oswin]

Exciting! So...I started running when I was about that age. I ran my first 5k when I was 8. Before that I did a few fun runs at races my parents were doing. Believe it or not, I mostly trained by myself - we lived on a little loop street on the edge of a small town, and I ran 0.4 mile laps by myself, working up to 3 miles. Of course you might not live somewhere so solo kid friendly - I didn't even have to cross any streets except to start and stop. IIRC I ran almost every day. Running at least a few times a week would be good if she wants to train for a 5k.

Anyway, my advice is to search out kids fun runs at local races. For instance, I decide to do a trail 5k last December and they had a "youth mile" - DD (who is 5) ran it and won, and now she wants to run more too. DD and DS1 are both doing the Healthy Kids Running Series, which is neat (they're all kinds of places, but may not be in your area) but short - K/1st run 1/4 mile, 2/3rd grade run 1/2 mile, bigger kids maybe run 1 mile? It's much easier to find a 5k than a kids run.

I was excited to find out that *all* trail races put on by this one organization (and they do a lot near me in Texas every year) include a youth mile, so I'm going to try to sign up for more races so DD and I can both do races (though usually the youth mile would be while I was running, so DH will have to bring the boys along too). Hopefully you'll find some similar things near you, though of course racing isn't everything, you can also just run together! I ran nearly every day with my mom for about 6 years I think? Age 10-16 or so. It was great. We'd run in the mornings before school. So I'd look at your daughter's schedule and figure out when you can squeeze in 10-20 minutes of running (leaving a bit of extra time in case she stops to walk). She might do just fine after soccer practice, but it depends on how intense practice is. After school but before dinner might also be a good time, but it depends on how your schedule is. I wouldn't worry too much about timing things, just let her run/walk by feel for starters.

[luckystar2]

I started my daughter out with C25K. I think it’s a great way to start. We did it loosely and eventually she just wanted to do her own thing some. So we did walk/run intervals that she liked and just kept trying to increase. Her very first runs were color runs before we did actual training. Those were a lot of fun and encouraged her interest. Her first real race was a local all women’s run and she really liked that. What really helped spur her interest are medals! She loves the bling! A lot of our local 5ks started giving out really fun medals last year so she ended up doing several just cause she liked the medals.